GDPR Scam Targets Bank Customers
As many predicted, new data protection guidelines have created an attack vector for scammers, this time aimed at NatWest bank.
Police indicate that customers who bank at National Westminster Bank (NatWest) are among those targeted by an onslaught of phishing attacks to be related to General Data Protection Regulation changes.
As many institutions are reaching out to customers in an effort to show compliance with GDPR guidelines, scammers have injected their own emails into the mix. According to reports the emails NatWest customers received claimed that accounts would face deletion if personal details were not update, and were redirected to malicious website designed to gather information.
As penalties may be immediately assessed against those who fail to comply with GDPR effective today, May 25, 2018, companies have been scrambling to meet the new regulations, providing an attack vector for scammers to try their hand at stealing any number of credentials or sensitive data.
Another perhaps unforeseen side effect of the GDPR law saw EU citizens who tried to browse popular US news outlets like The LA Times, Chicago Times, and The New York Daily News found those sites offline. For the time being the measures taken by these news organizations speak of the relatively large scale of unreadiness as the deadline for GDPR compliance has come to pass.
While it is likely to take time, in the long run GDPR isn’t going anywhere, and eventually the phishing attacks that are rising to prevalence as a result of the shift in policy will subside. In the meantime, we recommend that users and businesses alike check out MetaCert’s suite of existing security tools, including our Cryptonite browser extension, our Telegram Bot, and our enterprise security tool for Slack. Keep yourself and your community safe, with MetaCert.
MetaCert is creating solutions for anti-phishing, child safety, brand protection, crypto-address verification, and news credibility with the MetaCert Protocol. You can find out more about the MetaCert Protocol by joining our Telegram community to stay up to date on our blockchain project. Remember to install Cryptonite, to protect yourself from phishing scams before it’s too late.
